Minsk: European Council President Charles Michel on Monday convened an emergency summit of EU leaders to discuss the presidential election in Belarus and the crackdown in the wake of the polls.
Noting that the video conference would take place on Wednesday at 1000 GMT, Michel tweeted that the people of Belarus have the right to decide on their future and freely elect their leader.
“Violence against protesters is unacceptable and cannot be allowed,” he said.
The 27 EU foreign ministers said on Friday that the elections were neither free nor fair and that they refuse to accept the results of the polls, as announced by the Belarus electoral commission.
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The UK also rejected the recent Belarusian election's results and condemned acts of violence by the country's authorities against peaceful protests.
"The world has watched with horror at the violence used by the Belarusian authorities to suppress the peaceful protests after the fraudulent presidential poll," UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab said on Monday.
Several thousand factory workers took to the streets of Minsk on Monday, demanding the resignation of authoritarian Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. It was the ninth straight day of protesting against the results of an election that extended his 26-year rule.
Nearly 5,000 workers from the Minsk Tractor Works plant, which has been on strike since Monday morning, marched down the streets of Minsk, demanding that Lukashenko step down and cede his post to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leading opposition candidate.
The official results of the August 9 vote gave Lukashenko 80% of the votes and Tsikhanouskaya only 10%, but the opposition claimed the vote was rigged.
(AP)
